Tactics of Mistake – Gordon R. Dickson

Ace, printed 1982, copyright 1971, 222 pages

ISBN: 0-441-79972-8

Read February 2013, at age 34

First time read

What it is:

There’s some debate as to the best reading order for The Childe Cycle – I read this one fourth.  It seemed a reasonable place to slot it.

From the back cover:

One man could win against worlds!

If that man was Donal Graeme, iconoclastic ex-Terran military officer, and if his revolutionary new theories of tactics and training were valid.  And the Dorsai, that world of stateless soldiers of fortune who sold their lives in foreign wars to feed their families, seemed to be the ideal testing ground.

But if Donal Graeme was wrong, if his theories were flawed and the Dorsai lacked the spark of greatness he thought he saw in them, then he was a dead man.  For if he failed he would make a blood enemy of the most powerful planet in human space…

Well.  That seems to hint at non-human space.  That hasn’t happened in any of the books to date, including this one.  Also:  Cletus Graeme.  Not Donal Graeme, the star of Dorsai!  Although it may be that he’s the same dude through all the books, he’s certainly not named the same.

Reactions after the break:

The books are getting better.  It was still very readable, and I enjoyed this one, much more than the other three so far.  The main character is still superman, and he never fails.  I was tired of that in the first book, and… actually, I didn’t mind it so much this time.  I’m not exactly sure why.  Maybe it seemed like he *could* actually fail, even if he didn't.  Maybe it’s that I’ve been reading mediocre-to-bad books lately, and I can’t tell the difference any more.

Rating: 3

The characters, as ever, are pretty much cutouts.  Motivations may or may not make sense outside the needs of the plot.

The setting in the early days of the diaspora (slotted in between Necromancer and Soldier, Ask Not) makes much more sense to me than any of the other books – far, far future (Dorsai!), far future (Soldier, Ask Not) and near future (Necromancer).  It’s not as homogenous as Dorsai! and feels more reasonable than the almighty newsman of Soldier, Ask Not.  

The premise was similarly overarching to the rest of the books – basically planning the revolt of the colony planets from Earth, without either side knowing what was going on.  It was good.

Other Opinions:

Simon McLeish

Not much for opinions, really.  Seemed to think it was an important work.  I highly disagree that it's similar to Heinlein - his books are all about the characters, whereas this whole series is all about the ideas.

Imagineer-ing

Basically an incomplete plot summary and a 5-star rating.